Defence cuts: the facts

The latest redundancies revealed today in the Telegraph are the latest in a
series of defence cuts made by the Government.

The Army is axing 12,000 soldiers in the next three years followed by a further 8,000 in 2020Photo: REUTERS

7:00AM GMT 12 Nov 2011

The Strategic Defence and Security Review, published last October, outlined plans to cut the military budget by 7.5 per cent over five years.

In last years Strategic Defence and Security Review the Army was to reduce by 7,000 soldiers from 102,000 by 2015.

This was quietly increased by a further 5,000 earlier this year but the paper shown to the Telegraph shows that without any public debate the MoD has decided that by April 2015 a total of 16,500 soldiers will be axed.

While those serving in Afghanistan are temporarily safe from compulsory redundancy men from the same battalions left behind doing invaluable “rear party” work such as looking after bereaved and wounded will be vulnerable.

The classified memo reveals that 2,500 wounded soldiers – including 350 who have lost their limbs in bomb explosions and roadside ambushes – will not be exempt from the cull.

The Army will be slashed to its smallest size since the Boer War, 131 years ago. Experts believe that as many as eight battalions could cease to exist.

Critics have said the cuts will leave Britain reliant on a "Dad's Army" of reservists.

While the review revealed the RAF will be cut by 5,000 from 44,000 to 39,000 personnel, each as part of a cost-cutting exercise which also saw the cancellation of equipment including Nimrod MRA4 reconnaissance planes.

The Royal Navy's flagship aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal was also earmarked to be scrapped along with its fleet of Harrier jump-jets

Former defence Secretary Liam Fox announced in September that spending on equipment would increase by 1 per cent above inflation each year after 2015 to pave the way for the so-called Future Force 2020.

But the Defence Committee said it was "not convinced that, given the current financial climate and the drawdown of capabilities arising from the SDSR, UK armed forces will be able do what is asked of them after 2015".

The Gurkhas have also been hit hard, with over a hundred infantrymen from the historic Nepalese brigade making up most of those in the army who will be told that they have been selected for compulsory redundancy.

However today's memo shows the cuts to personal are likely to go further than has been publicly announced.

The Government has rowed back on some aspects of the Defence Review.

In October defence chiefs said they would allowed service personnel to keep their children at public schools, despite pledging to slash millions from Armed Forces allowances.

They said scrapping the £180 million – a – year Continuity of Education Allowance would affect the "operational effectiveness" of personnel.

It also emerged that defence cuts and the war in Libya have left the Navy unable to provide a warship to guard Britain's home waters for the first time in nearly 30 years.

Earlier this month MoD adviser Prof Andrew Dorman wrote to the new Defence Secretary Philip Hammond to ask him to reopen the defence review.

Prof Dorman, who holds a senior position at Nato, said the Armed Forces remain "critically ill" and recent proposals amount to "little more than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic."

Publicly, both the MoD and Downing Street have insisted the review will not be reopened. But some insiders have insisted that changes will almost certainly have to be made because the MoD's 2011–12 budget allocation is about £1 billion short of the department's commitments.

The Ministry of Defence has scrapped nearly £1 billion of spare equipment. The Royal Navy alone disposed of £570 million worth of material, Peter Luff, the defence minister, has disclosed in response to a written parliamentary question.